After the
first pullet egg,
we saw one little white egg a day for a while. I couldn’t
tell whether only one Leghorn had started to lay, or whether all
three were taking turns, but I didn’t really mind while the eggs
were coming in. Then…they stopped.
I had a feeling the
pullet(s) had found a spot up in the pasture to lay, but I got
busy and didn’t take the time to track them down for about a
week. In the meantime, Mark found one brown pullet egg in
the coop, which I’m guessing came from the Red Stars (although it
could have come from one of our homegrown Black
Australorps). After laying her first egg, though, that
pullet too moved out of the coop.
With no eggs coming in from our youthful
flock, I finally started paying attention. Yep, the pullets
seemed to be making quite a racket in the morning from one
particular spot up on the hillside. So I trekked up the
terrace pathway and found a dozen little eggs tucked away under a
cut branch.
This is the one small
problem with a dynamic
forest pasture
— it’s complex enough that chickens sometimes feel safe laying
out in the wild. I’m not terribly worried, though, since
once we get these pullets into a real laying coop with a solid
nest box, I suspect they’ll settle down.
In the meantime, I
dropped each egg in a glass of water, saw that they still sank
straight to the bottom instead of floated, and declared them ready
to eat. Delicious homegrown eggs!
We have four chickens, and the oldest one has started laying eggs.but today we found her egg in the back of our house.Why is she laying eggs in a different spot? She normally lays them in her nest inside the coop.Is she trying to avoid the other chickens, or maybe she’s tired of us taking her eggs? I’ve been told to put hold balls in her nest to trick her.any advice?
Debbra — It can be so frustrating when a chicken starts laying in the wrong place…especially since the rest of the flock can sometimes join in the “fun”. In my experience, hens sometimes lay in a new place when they want to go broody or when they’re being picked on or when they’re new to laying and haven’t gotten the hang of the nest box yet. With an older hen, I’d guess it’s one of the first two options. Perhaps separating her for a while would get her back on track? Nest eggs never hurt, of course — we use golf balls.